Australian Reports of the Virus Spread

[dajop]

No argument to be made for locking down regional Victoria when zero cases,

Other states still think so, 12 days on, still no cases in regional Victoria, yet several states still have travel prohibitions, even from regional Vic. One of my siblings who's in Mildura had stuff booked in ADL next week. Looking like no dice.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Point three could well be the same risk within a dedicated facility as hotels. As it is now you more or less grab your bags and go to your room in Victoria.

Returned traveller to other non-HQ people

At an Avalon/Mickleham/Howard Springs Type facility there will be no members of the public, as some could inadvertently walk in if there is a security lapse. No confused couriers etc. It just removes another layer of potential human error occurring.

And also at a number of HQ people enter via a footpath from the bus and so there is the potential for transmission. On a still day transmission by aerosolization could be possible.

At an Avalon/Mickleham/Howard Springs Type facility there are/will be a dedicated road in and passenger disembarkation area. Members of the public will be outside the fence and given the locations not even then.

Other possibilities would include that all services can be more streamlined and performed more securely. For example how the waste (garbage) is handled, linen etc can all be made more secure with less chance of the people involved having any chance of fomite or other transmission.

 

[Pushka]

Other states still think so, 12 days on, still no cases in regional Victoria, yet several states still have travel prohibitions, even from regional Vic. One of my siblings who's in Mildura had stuff booked in ADL next week. Looking like no dice.

Unless living within 70 kms from SA border.

 

[oz_mark]

Other states still think so, 12 days on, still no cases in regional Victoria, yet several states still have travel prohibitions, even from regional Vic. One of my siblings who's in Mildura had stuff booked in ADL next week. Looking like no dice.

In many cases, it is just the states matching what Victoria has done. Just to discourage people from state hopping

 

[Must...Fly!]

And also at a number of HQ people enter via a footpath from the bus and so there is the potential for transmission.

Seriously, be reasonable in your arguments.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Seriously, be reasonable in your arguments.

They are remote possibilities agreed, but they were not meant to be the more likely ones.

However despite every tightening of HQ it still is having breaches, whereas so far Howard Springs has not.

This breach, and the recent Sydney being particularly puzzling as seemingly no other returned traveller or HQ staff member was involved as the link out. So just maybe a more remote possibility has occurred.

 

[dajop]

In many cases, it is just the states matching what Victoria has done. Just to discourage people from state hopping

Many states are very quick to match when putting in place restrictions, but much slower to match the relaxing of restrictions. I guess it's only been 4 days since Regional Vic lockdown was lifted.

I know people are down on Melbourne's 2 week lockdown, but if they didn't but used contact tracing to keep a lid on cases at 4-5 a day for the next month or two, the borders would remain closed for the whole duration.

 

[kamchatsky]

Many states are very quick to match when putting in place restrictions, but much slower to match the relaxing of restrictions. I guess it's only been 4 days since Regional Vic lockdown was lifted.

I know people are down on Melbourne's 2 week lockdown, but if they didn't but used contact tracing to keep a lid on cases at 4-5 a day for the next month or two, the borders would remain closed for the whole duration.

The whole statewide lockdown is madness with such small number of cases, and vaccination program running. However the voters have reward government on such matters so they will continue to use such blunt instrument until the majority of voter revolt. I cannot see it happening anytime soon.

 

[Lynda2475]

Other states still think so, 12 days on, still no cases in regional Victoria, yet several states still have travel prohibitions, even from regional Vic. One of my siblings who's in Mildura had stuff booked in ADL next week. Looking like no dice.

Putting regional Victoria into lockdown (unnecessarily) triggered a message to other states that Vic considered it a hotspot / area of concern and therefore restrictions were mirrored interstate.

Sometimes other states jump the gun and declare on their own, but for the last few months if a state self declares a hotspot as Queensland, WA and now Victoria have done - the other states follow suit.

History has shown that both WA and Queensland wait between 14-28 days of a declaration being lifted to allow green travel. Other states generally faster, but it can vary, NT typically the fastest. This is why you need to make declarations/restrictions targeted to actual areas of concern and not statewide.

Had Vic not lumped Regional Vic in with Metropolitan Melbourne, you can bet that the interstate restrictions would have not applied to Regional Victoria, only Melbourne metro. This is what happened with the Brisbane and Perth declarations, most other states didn't put restrictions on travelers from Broome or Cairns for example.

The more nuanced approach was starting to gain momentum, until it regressed with this latest statewide lockdown.

 

[justinbrett]

Returned traveller to other non-HQ people

At an Avalon/Mickleham/Howard Springs Type facility there will be no members of the public, as some could inadvertently walk in if there is a security lapse. No confused couriers etc. It just removes another layer of potential human error occurring.



And also at a number of HQ people enter via a footpath from the bus and so there is the potential for transmission. On a still day transmission by aerosolization could be possible.

At an Avalon/Mickleham/Howard Springs Type facility there are/will be a dedicated road in and passenger disembarkation area. Members of the public will be outside the fence and given the locations not even then.

Other possibilities would include that all services can be more streamlined and performed more securely. For example how the waste (garbage) is handled, linen etc can all be made more secure with less chance of the people involved having any chance of fomite or other transmission.

I've noticed that both VIC and QLD are speaking for NSW saying that it agrees with them on replacing hotel quarantine.

It does not. It said if the feds want to run a quarantine centre in NSW, great, go nuts. NSW will have no part in it The quarantine that NSW will run is HQ.

I'm not sure Sydney gets enough credit for how successful the program has actually been (and yes I'll get flamed by the #ISWD members here for saying that) - but considering how many people it's processed each and every week, there's never been a city wide lockdown, the main outbreaks in Sydney occurred from the Ruby Princess and the Melbourne outbreak. The Northern Beaches outbreak did come from HQ but in the grand scheme of things wasn't that big, and didn't result in a single death.

HQ is not that big of a threat if you're willing to mop up the odd spill. It's only the states that are afraid of losing their zero case streak that are banging on about it. Surely it's more important to have as many options as possible for our citizens to come home from places with exponentially more risk.

 

[HappyFlyerFamily]

My understanding is the source of the Northern Beaches cluster is not determined - aircrew, HQ staff, border staff, etc??????

 

[justinbrett]

My understanding is the source of the Northern Beaches cluster is not determined - aircrew, HQ staff, border staff, etc??????

The source is a traveller in SYD HQ. How it got to the northern beaches was never proven - suspected to be international aircrew.

 

[Lynda2475]

If I recall the Feds have defined the terms for having a federally funded quarantine facility as it needs to be built on Commonwealth site, the state has to agree to staff and fund its operation, it must be within defined distance of a Hospital capable of treating Covid cases. The Qld proposal didnt meet that criteria, so isnt being given further consider.

Here is article where NSW stated they are not requesting a remote quarantine solution from the Feds:

"Premier Gladys Berejiklian would not accept a Victorian-style quarantine facility in NSW, insisting any purpose built centre would need to be the sole responsibility of the federal government.

The Premier says the Morrison government may choose to build and run a facility in the future, but stressed there had never been any push from NSW to establish specialised quarantine facilities."

Berejiklian says a quarantine facility in NSW must be a federal responsibility

Meanwhile, the NSW government will open a second mass vaccination centre in mid-July, with a former Bunnings warehouse in Lake Macquarie to be transformed into a hub.

www.smh.com.au

 

[Lynda2475]

The source is a traveller in SYD HQ

That was actually never confirmed, there was a traveler with a similar strain but it wasn't conclusively genomically linked. Hence the popular theory of air crew as the cause.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

The source is a traveller in SYD HQ. How it got to the northern beaches was never proven - suspected to be international aircrew.

I don't think that is correct.

Last I can recall there was a traveller in HQ who genomically had a strain (from the USA from memory) which was very close to the Avalon Strain, but was not considered to be the source. It was said at the time that genomics indicated that it was not the source due to too many variations.

ie The traveller probably came from a region where the source strain was.

As aircrew were not closely monitored or tested at that the time and it was shown that they also broke isolate requirements the speculation was that the source may have been an aircrew member from the USA who has from the same or similar region as the traveller.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

I've noticed that both VIC and QLD are speaking for NSW saying that it agrees with them on replacing hotel quarantine.

What actually was said, and by whom?

Do you have a link or quote?

 

[justinbrett]

What actually was said, and by whom?

Do you have a link or quote?

It was said today by the VIC A/Premier and AP from QLD said "Even NSW agrees with us" or words to that effect. I'll see if I can dig up a transcript of both.

 

[HappyFlyerFamily]

What actually was said, and by whom?

Do you have a link or quote?

I don't see a point really. The point being made by justinbrett was that it may have been a HQ leak but the overall point was that NSW's HQ is successful and not seen as a threat. The fact that it probably wasn't actually a HQ leak seems to strengthen the overall point that was being made that HQ is successful and not really viewed by NSW Government as a threat.

Edit: looks like I was looking at the wrong point lol

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Edit: looks like I was looking at the wrong point lol

Yes.

However, I was just curious as to what was actually said and by whom. Without that it not possible to understand.

 

[oz_mark]

HQ is not that big of a threat if you're willing to mop up the odd spill. It's only the states that are afraid of losing their zero case streak that are banging on about it. Surely it's more important to have as many options as possible for our citizens to come home from places with exponentially more risk.

HQ has been very successful. In my view, it is has been the single most important thing in getting us to where we are. (And it probably helped keep some hotels afloat)